CHAPTER IV
CONGENIAL COMPANY
He started ahead as he had before, with that show of utter unconcerntowards the girl that was absolutely new to her experience. Her eyeswere wide with appeal as she watched him striding up the trail. Forherself she wanted nothing; but her womanly nature craved some triflingsign, some word of assurance that the man was uninjured--really safeagain and whole--after that terrible plunge. But this from thehorseman was impossible. He had not even thanked her for the rescue.
"You horrid, handsome wretch!" she murmured vexedly, stimulated torenewed activity by her resentment; then she followed along the narrowway.
They came to the flat, beyond the wall, where Elsa sat keeping thehorses. The maid looked the horseman over quite calmly, inquiring:
"What for dit you did it--go down there?"
"Just for ducks," said Van. He halted for Beth's approach, put her upon the roan, and once more strode off in the trail ahead with apromptness that was certainly amazing.
There was no understanding such a person. Beth gave it up. The wholeaffair was inexplicable--his attitude towards Searle at the station,his abduction of herself and the maid, and this trailing of the pair ofthem across these terrible places, for no apparent reason in the world.
Her mare followed on in the tracks of the muscular figure, over whom,for a moment, she had almost wished to yearn. His escape from deathhad been so slender--and he would not even rest!
The flat was, in reality, the hog's back or ridge of a lofty spur ofthe mountains. Except for the vast bluish canyons and gorges farbelow, the view was somewhat restricted here, since towering summits,in a conclave of peaks, arose to right and left.
After a time, as they swung around on the trend of the ridge, they cameabreast a mighty gap in the mountains to the left, and there, far down,lay a valley as flattened by perspective as the unruffled surface of alake.
Here Van presently halted, peering down and searching the vast grayfloor with the keenest attention. He went on further, and haltedagain, Beth meanwhile watching his face with increasing curiosity.
At the third of his stops she gazed no more on the panorama ofimmensity, but rather gazed at him.
"What is it you expect to see?" she inquired at last. "Goldite isn'tdown there, is it?"
"I'm rather expecting--if I haven't miscalculated on the time----There he is now," he answered, still staring afar off down upon thevalley. He raised his arm and extended a finger to point towards thenorth-most limit of the level stretch of land. "Do you see that small,dark object in the road? That's a road, that slender yellow streakthat you can follow."
Beth obeyed directions and thereby discerned, with remarkableclearness, the moving object, far away below. She did not in the leastsuspect its nature.
"Why, yes--what is it?" she asked with languid interest, havingexpected something more significant. "Is it some small animal?"
"Yes," responded Van. "It's Searle."
Beth was instantly all attention.
"Not Mr. Bostwick, in his car?"
Van continued to study the gray of the world-wide map.
"I rather wonder----" he mused, and there he halted, presently adding,"He's climbing a hill. You might not think so, looking down from here,but it's steep and sandy, for a car."
She was watching eagerly.
"And he's no further along towards Goldite than this?"
"He's had some tough old going," answered Van. "He's in luck to----"then to himself, as he continued to scan the scene for something he didnot apparently find. "By Jupe! I'd have sworn Matt Barger----" Hebroke off abruptly, adding in a spirit of fairness, "Searle is gettingright up to the ridge all right. Good boy! He must have a powerfulmotor under the--There! By George! I knew it! I knew it! Got him!right there in the gravel!"
The girl looked suddenly upon him, wholly unable to comprehend thesharp exclamations he was making.
"What has got him? What do you mean?" she demanded in vague alarm. "Idon't see what you----"
"That's Matt every time--I thought so," he resumed, as he stepped alittle closer to the girl. "Don't you see them?--those lively littlespecks, swarming all around the machine?"
Beth bent her gaze on the drama, far below--a play in which she knewbut one of the characters, and nothing of the meaning of the scene.
"I see--yes--something like a lot of tiny ants--or something. What arethey?--not robbers?--not men?"
"Part men, part hyenas," he told her quietly. "It's a lot of Stateconvicts, escaped from their prison, two days free--and desperate."
She was suddenly very pale. Her eyes were blazing.
"Convicts! Out of prison?"
"A good long way out," he told her watching, "and clever enough to hikefor the mines, with the camps all full of strangers. They learn to begood mixers, when they're trying to escape."
Beth gazed at him searchingly.
"You--knew they were out--and waiting on the road?"
"Everyone knew they were out--and I certainly thought big Matt would doprecisely what you see he has done."
"Matt?" she echoed.
"The leader," he explained, "a clever brute as ever worried a sheriff."
She was not in the least interested in the personality of the convictthus described. Her mind had flown to another aspect of the case--thecase involving herself.
"And this was why you wouldn't let us go in the auto?" she said. "Youexpected this?"
He looked at her quickly.
"Searle wouldn't take my advice, you know." His eyes were once moremerry. "What could I do?"
"But Mr. Bostwick wouldn't have gone if you had told him!" she said."Oh, I'm surprised you'd do it--let him go and be captured like that!"She was looking down upon the silent drama intently as she added: "Idon't see why you ever did it!"
He was still amused.
"Oh, I thought perhaps Searle deserved it."
She blazed a little.
"You told him you hoped he'd meet congenial company on the road. Youdidn't mean----"
"Guilty as charged in the indictment. I guess I did."
"Oh! I wouldn't have thought----" she started, then she shivered inhorror, reflecting swiftly on the fate that might have befallen herselfand Elsa had they too been captured with Searle. It was all explainedat last--the horseman's earnest talk with Dave, his quiet but grimrefusal to permit herself and Elsa to remain with the car, and thehazardous ride he had since dared compel them to take at such peril tohis life! And now, his persistent advance on foot, when perhaps he waspainfully injured! He had done then such a service as she could neverin her life forget. His treatment of Searle had perhaps, even as hesaid, been deserved. Nevertheless, Searle was much to her, very much,indeed--or had been--up to this morning--and she was worried.
"What do you think they will do?" she added in a spirit of contritionthat came at once upon her. "They must be terrible men!"
"They won't do much but take his money and clothes, and maybe beg for aride," said Van reassuringly. "They'll see he isn't fit to kill."
Beth glanced at him briefly, inquiringly. What a baffling light it wasthat played in the depths of his eyes! What manner of being was he,after all? She could not tell. And yet she felt she could trusthim--she certainly knew not why. Despite his ways of raillery she felthe was serious, true as steel, and big in heart and nature.
"I mustn't forget to thank you," she murmured. "I mean for sparingus--all that. I do thank you, most sincerely, for----"
"Never mind that," he interrupted. "We're going to be late to lunch."
He turned once more to the trail and started off, in his active manner,together with a thorough indifference as to what became of Bostwick.
Beth, with a feeling that something ought yet to be done for Searle,down in the valley with the convicts, cast one helpless glance at thescene of the hold-up, then perforce urged her pony forward.
Van halted no more. He led the way doggedly onward, over the ri
ses,through great silent forests, past crystal springs, and down dark,somber ravines. At a quarter of one he emerged from a gorge upon thelevel acre of a tiny cove, still high in the mountains fastnesses.Here he let out a whoop like an Indian, its echo filling all the place.
An answering call came clearly from somewhere near at hand. Beth felta sudden alarm to know there were human beings near. What sort theywere was a matter entirely of conjecture. Then presently shediscovered a number of small, rude buildings, and a fair-sized cabin,planted next the hill. The door of the latter was open. A tall manappeared in the frame.
"This," said Van, who had waited for the girl to ride once more to hisside, "is the Monte Cristo mine--the worst false alarm that everdisfigured the map."